


there’s a grief that can’t be spoken

by tealeafling



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Canonical Character Death, Episode 26 spoilers, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Temporary Character Death, isn’t everything though now tbh, no editing we die like men, sort of a happy ending? more of a hopeful one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 07:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15286836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tealeafling/pseuds/tealeafling
Summary: They have no idea how it happened, but they can be decently sure it was some Lucien shit.(In which Molly comes back, and Beau tries to be a friend.)





	there’s a grief that can’t be spoken

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from Les Mis.
> 
> you can probably tell from my username who my favorite character is and I am UPSET
> 
> but like objectively? I think the plot just got VERY interesting and I’m really excited to see what Matt and the remaining party does next (one can only hope that they’ll bring Molly back somehow)

They have no idea how it happened, but they can be decently sure it was some Lucien shit.

One minute they were riding their horses back south, Nott and Caleb on one with Beau and a tightly secured Molly on the other, the three living members of their party silent and staring tiredly at the road. Then suddenly, behind Beau, the figure wound up in the gaudy tapestry that he had loved so dearly shifted. Then jolted and nearly fell off the horse.

“What the _fuck!”_ Beau exclaimed, nearly falling off the horse as well. In front of her, Caleb and Nott stopped their horse, then immediately jumped off and ran towards her.

 _”Was ist los—_ here, _quickly,_ get him on the ground.” Beau jumped down and with Caleb’s help, untied the bundle from the horse and gently placed it on the side of the road. Caleb quickly tore the tapestry away from Molly’s face.

A face with eyes open that was struggling to breathe. _Not dead._

“Fuck, we need to—“ Beau had no idea where she was going with her sentence, but they needed to do something. Molly was quite clearly not dead anymore.

Nott scrambled towards him, prying open the rest of the tapestry wrapped around Molly’s body. “Molly, you’re—you’re _alive.”_

His body finally free from the tightly wrapped fabric, Molly coughed, deep wracking coughs that cleared the blood collected in his lungs. He finally settled back down, closing his eyes for a moment before looking back up at the three faces above him. But he still did not say a word.

“Wait.” Caleb glanced at the other two standing next to him. “This is likely from whatever ritual Lucien— _sheiße_ —we need to be sure this is still him.”

At that statement, Beau almost let out the sob she had been holding in for the last few days, since Molly’s death. But she held it in and nodded.

She cleared her throat and looked into Molly’s blank red eyes. “Do you—do you know who we are? Who _you_ are?”

Seconds passed, the waiting near agony for the three staring at their recently revived friend. Then he licked his lips and nodded faintly. “M-Mollymauk,” he said in a hoarse, cracked voice.

Nott practically jumped on top of Molly, hugging him. Beau immediately started sobbing and grabbed onto him as well. Caleb sat back, more averse to touch, but he smiled much wider than Beau had probably ever seen him smile.

“Don’t do that again, you fucker,” Beau cried, but her words were more said with affection than real anger.

Molly said nothing, but he raised a shaking hand and put it over hers. Then he made a pained noise and groaned.

“Oh, shit, you’re still hurt,” Nott exclaimed. “Beau, don’t you have something—an herbalist kit? Medicine kit?”

Beau jumped up and ran towards her horse, where she had unceremoniously dropped her pack on the ground. “Yeah, I’ve got a healer’s kit,” she yelled back, digging into her pack. “Got it!”

She dropped down to her knees as she got back to her friend and pulled out a large wad of bandages. “Here, Caleb, help me out here.”

The deep wound in Molly’s chest was mostly healed up somehow, but he was still bleeding much more than a person should be. Eventually, they finished wrapping up his torso, and turned around to see that Nott had finished setting up a tent as well.

“I’m guessing we won’t be moving anymore today,” she said as she tied off a final knot.

Caleb and Beau both nodded. “You would be right, _mein Freund,”_ Caleb said, and Beau could detect a hint of pride in his voice.

They stayed one night where they were. Molly drifted off to sleep almost immediately after they moved inside, and the others were soon to follow, exhausted after the emotional turmoil of the past few days and from traveling as fast as they could back to Zadash.

***

Eventually, they make it back to the city, their pace slightly slower now that they weren’t in such a rush to find someone to revive Molly, but still probably faster than the horses should have been going.

“We need to speak with the Gentleman,” Caleb says as they tie their horses outside the Leaky Tap. “We need backup to rescue the other three.”

Molly glances down, his body still caked in blood. “I... I need a bath.” His voice is still hoarse; after coming back from the dead, he barely spoke a word as they rode to Zadash.

“I’ll go with him.” Nott, Caleb, and Molly glance at Beau, startled at her statement.

“Okay,” Nott says slowly. “I’ll go with Caleb then. Be safe. We’ll meet you back here later tonight.”

So Beau and Molly find themselves at the bath house, stumbling in exhaustedly. The girl at the front desk’s eyes widen as she sees the two of them, bloody and quite honestly looking like they’re about to collapse.

Molly shrugs off his coat. “Fix this if you can,” he croaks, and drops several gold coins on the counter. Definitely more than he would actually have to pay.

 _Gods, he’s always so generous,_ Beau thinks.

The girl’s eyes widen even further as she takes the coat between two fingers, glancing at the abundance of blood and the ragged hole in the back, behind where Molly’s heart would be. “Uh...” She makes eye contact with Molly. He stares back blankly.

After a few seconds, she nods, and Beau can almost make out a look of pity in her eyes. “Yes, you may head right back.”

After separating to their different changing rooms, Beau makes it to the large bath first. There are three other people already there, talking quietly, and they nod politely at Beau when she enters.

When Molly enters, they take one look at the bloodstained bandages still wrapping his torso, and immediately leave.

Molly sits on the edge of the bath, still wrapped in a towel around his waist, glances at the bandages himself, then at Beau.

“I, uh, I don’t suppose I thought this through all the way.”

At the opposite end of the bath, Beau shrugs. “Eh, man, as long as you’re not in immediate danger of bleeding out, you’re probably fine.”

After a few seconds, Molly shrugs as well, and slides into the bath. The water around him turns pink.

The two of them are silent for a while, both staring down at the water. At one point, a man enters the room, and leaves right away when Beau looks as him and shakes her head.

The awkward silence is broken about twenty minutes in when Molly lets out a sob.

 _Shit,_ Beau thinks. _I am the_ worst _person at comforting._ But she slides through the water anyway, sitting down next to her friend—her frenemy?—no, her _friend._

“Molly...” she says quietly, then awkwardly raises a hand and places it on his shoulder. He immediately leans into the touch.

“I didn’t want to die, Beau,” he says, voice choked with tears. His entire body is shaking. “I knew I had to do what I did, I had to _protect_ all of you, but gods, Beau, I was so afraid.”

Beau has absolutely no idea what to say to that. Molly has never really opened up like that to any of them, save Yasha, not even when he was under Jester’s zone of truth.

“That...” she starts. “That guy was an asshole.” _Gods, that’s the understatement of the year._ “I mean, he killed a toddler.”

Molly almost laughs, which was maybe what Beau was going for? She’s not even sure. “Yeah, he technically did.” He sniffs, wiping snot away from his nose, then leans his head on Beau’s shoulder.

She stiffens at first—they’re both naked, after all—but loosens up after a second. Her friend definitely needs this. She raises her hand awkwardly again, this time placing it in his damp hair.

“Do you think they were there?” Molly mumbles. “Do you think they saw... what happened?”

Beau knows who he is referring to without him having to say, and thinks for a second. “I think they were probably there,” she slowly articulates. “But honestly, I hope for their sakes that they didn’t see what happened.”

Molly nods, his expression difficult to decipher.

“We’ll get them back,” she says firmly. “We got you back, and we'll get them back, too. We’ll catch up to those assholes, and this time we’ll have backup.” _And we’ll kill them all,_ she thinks, but she’s not sure if that violence is what Molly needs to hear right now.

“Damn right we will,” he says, voice quiet. He straightens up. “Uh, sorry, Beau. If this made you uncomfortable.”

She smiles and shrugs again. “Nah, man, you’re good.” She scoots slightly farther away now that Molly seems to have calmed down, for the most part. “Sorry I’m bad at... comforting.”

He smiles back, red eyes still staring at the water in front of him. “Nah, you’re good.” He ducks under the water briefly, and when he comes back up, he finally makes eye contact. “Thank you, Beau. I mean it.”

They sit again in silence for a few minutes, but the awkwardness from before has dissipated entirely. Eventually, Molly stands up.

“We should probably get back to the Leaky Tap soon,” he says. The hoarseness from before is almost gone. “Caleb and Nott will probably be there soon anyway.”

Beau swims back to the other end of the bath, where her towel is, then stands as well. “Yeah, let’s go see what the Gentleman said.” Once her towel is on, she looks back over towards Molly. His eyes are averted, but as she turns he looks back up and nods.

“We’re going to get out friends back.”

“Damn right we will.”


End file.
